Is it possible to combine non-dualist spirituality, revolutionary socialist politics, modern insights into culture and memes, a skeptical attitude and a sense of humour? Only one way to find out.

26 February 2009

*ronch* *ronch* *ronch*

I think Alan Moore is a pretty cool guy. Eh is serious about magick for the masses and doesn't afraid of anything:

There is the Bumper Book of Magic, which I am working on with my friend and inspiration Steve Moore—no relation. We are hoping that when we get it finished, in probably a couple of years, that it will be the most lucid, most beautiful, and probably most informative and funny grimoire that anybody has ever produced. It will be the first time a book of this nature, a huge compendium of magic which explains it in theory, in practice, which explains its history, and which includes all sorts of other wonderful features—it will be the first time this has ever been done for a mass market.

All of the previous magicians who've published grimoires have done it for an esoteric elite, and it's mainly been done in fairly opaque language that would only be comprehensible to people with already a fair amount of arcane knowledge. What we are trying to do is to make this, as I say, completely lucid, to demystify it, and at the same time to restore it to the position of reverence that we think that it should be in.

This is a venture entirely in congruence with the principles of Chaos Marxism. Of course, we want to construct an open-source wiki-style grimoire for the new millennium, but I can't blame Old Beardy for taking every opportunity presented, by the release of a movie he never wanted produced, to try something a bit different and daring.

(DISCLAIMER: I am going to see Watchmen and I fully expect to love it to death, because I'm one of those shallow zombies incapable of real thought who Alan and Mad Larry are always going on about.)

3 comments:

Also, this post reminded me of some thoughts I've had regarding the patron godform idea. A long the lines of the Horned God archetype, I was thinking about a Bearded Man archetype. This would cover Marx, Engels, Moore, RAW, etc...

You know, being something very close to a lesbian separatist on occasion, I suppose I always had an underlying assumption that a Goddess would embody things more (I'm thinking of Marianne, personification of the French Revolution) - but please, don't let me put you off!

The thing that leaps to mind is that a Big Bearded Bloke brings up two major images: (a) Santa Claus, (b) Thor of the AEsir, god of the common man, which might well work. I look forward to seeing your artwork, mythography, invocations, etc.

Yeah, I know I have been thinking a bit too on the male side. That occurred to me too. I had thought about Marianne. I was just thinking about the female embodiment of what Marxism represents, much as the Statue (Goddess) of Liberty does. Perhaps the Bearded Man is merely a steward to the providing mother... Ceres, Mother Russia, Marianne, Liberty. Personally and as an American, I've always liked the idea of Columbia as our national personification rather than Uncle Sam. It's sad not a lot of people know about her. Perhaps she's what we were supposed to become. There's an excellent graphic novel (Uncle Sam) that explores that issue.

Anyway, stream of consciousness is getting away from me...

I have definitely thought along the female lines, but then there's my male perspective picturing Marx and Che when Rosa Luxemburg only receives peripheral thoughts.

I do have a Hermes Trimegistus/Marx photoshop job that I did and that I'm not entirely that excited about. I'll share it soon though.